His Lordship's Secret Read online

  “Whatever you think best, doctor,” said Alfie soberly. Although he was unlikely to have inherited anything from either the late Lord or Lady Crawford, he had been feeling adrift since his mother’s passing, unsure of his place in the world or what he should do with himself now that he no longer had her to care for and keep company. He had assumed these were the sorts of feelings every son was expected to experience, but if the doctor thought they were cause for concern, then Alfie would follow his advice.

  “Glad to hear it.” Doctor Barlowe smiled and slapped his knee, “I won’t keep you. Lord knows you’ll need all your strength to deal with that cousin of yours. Try not to let him overtax you, and be mindful of your arm. I’ll be back to remove those stitches in… let us say two weeks?”

  “That works perfectly, thank you.”

  As they walked down the grand stairs to the main level, Doctor Barlowe waved Alfie off. “No need to see me to the door, I know my way by now. In fact, I may stop in on Mrs. Hirkins in the kitchen if you think she’d be willing to part with any more of that almond cake.”

  “I’m sure if there’s any left, she’d be happy to indulge you.” Alfie watched as the doctor descended a smaller set of stairs to the kitchen, before heading over to the closed door of the salon.

  He took a deep breath. He’d faced unknown gunmen, mad coach drivers, and the guilt that came with lying to Doctor Barlowe. If he could face those, he could face whatever entertainments his cousin had in store for the evening.

  After all that, nothing the rest of the night might hold could possibly shock him.

  Chapter 2

  “Freddie! There you are! I was afraid old Hirkins had finally done away with you and baked your bones into bread!”

  Alfie gritted his teeth at the hated nickname. “Or almond cake?”

  “It was a risk I was willing to take.” Reginald St. John shrugged from where he was lounging on the couch—not taking care to keep his muddy boots off the upholstery—and waved an empty glass toward the sideboard. “Be a dear, would you?”

  Every morning since his father died three years ago, Alfie had awoken with a ball of lead in the pit of his stomach. Guilt, he knew, because he wasn’t the true Earl of Crawford; Reginald was.

  Alfie took in his cousin. At forty, the man was almost a decade and a half Alfie's senior, yet still acted like some wastrel of a youth half his age. From what Alfie could tell, any time that Reginald didn’t spend whoring, drinking, or gambling with whatever funds remained from his own late father’s turn at the tables, he spent purchasing the latest fashions and accoutrements. The problem was, when the bills came due, he never actually paid for the items he ordered.

  While Alfie refused to pay any of Reginald’s gambling debts on principle, he didn’t have the heart to turn away the scores of tailors and haberdashers who inevitably ended up on his doorstep, looking only to collect fair payment for their hard work. As a result, Reginald took even more shameless advantage. Alfie wasn’t sure he’d ever actually seen the man in the same suit twice.

  And this was what Alfie thought of every morning for the past three years to convince himself to keep the secret for another day. If Reginald treated his inheritance with such appalling disregard, then how quickly would he bring the earldom to ruin? How many lives of those who paid Crawford rents and tilled their land would be destroyed as Reginald bled them for every farthing or gambled their livelihoods on a turn of cards? It was the thought of whole families, especially the children, going cold and hungry that held Alfie’s tongue.

  The heavy drinking and smoking his cousin indulged in showed in his figure and the permanent ruddiness of his face. From the few times Alfie had met Reginald’s father, the late earl’s younger brother, he had been the same way and according to the ton’s gossip had indulged in all of the same vices. The rotten apple had not fallen far from the tree. Reginald was of average height, like all Crawford men with the obvious exception of Alfie, and his fair hair hung sweaty and lank around his face, ruining whatever positive effect his costly tailoring might have had on his appearance.

  A hog in silk dressings, Mrs. Hirkins had once called him, which was cruel but horribly apt.

  Alfie went to the sideboard. The level of whiskey in the decanter was already noticeably lower than it had been. He debated abstaining, but in the end the prospect of an evening with Reginald won out over blood loss.

  He poured a small amount into a cut tumbler for himself before approaching his cousin with the decanter.

  “Oh, do stop making that face at me, Freddie. It’s liable to stick that way, and then where would you be? Why you’d have nothing to win you a wife at all, except for your wealth and title, and what woman wants that!”

  Reginald laughed uproariously at his own joke, causing Alfie to spill whiskey on the carpet as he tried to pour it into Reginald’s moving glass.

  It was not the first time Reginald had made such a jest, and each time Alfie grew more nervous. His cousin had a cruel sense of humor, the kind of man who would throw pennies in the street to watch beggars dig them out of the filth while he laughed and called it charity. His comments about wealth and titles, when Alfie had both and he had neither, seemed pointed, and only worsened Alfie’s guilt.

  But it was the other part that really worried him. Reginald’s jokes about Alfie finding a wife might have been just one bachelor jesting with another, but the more frequently he made them, the more Alfie worried Reginald might suspect his true nature.

  And for all that Alfie told himself that his reasons for not telling Reginald the truth and handing over the earldom were noble, that he was doing it to protect the people who could not protect themselves, the real reason was that Alfie was terrified. If Reginald knew the truth of Alfie's inclinations, that it was not the soft curves of women he desired, but the hard bodies of men, then the only things saving Alfie from persecution or even the noose were his money and title. Without those, Alfie would be at his cousin’s mercy, and Reginald had none.

  If Reginald knew.

  “Where have you been, anyway?” Reginald asked. He took the decanter from Alfie's hand and poured himself an overfull measure. “I was at the club for hours. Played not a few rounds of billiards waiting for you. When I finally glanced at the clock, I decided it was time to come searching.”

  He looked Alfie up and down, eyes landing on his lack of a waistcoat and still untucked shirt. Alfie silently cursed himself for coming directly to the salon instead of taking the time to dress himself properly.

  “From the state you’re in, if it was any other man I’d have guessed I’d interrupted you with your mistress but you… Let me guess, you found a book missing a page and had to hunt through the entire library to find it? Or were you out gazing at clouds in the park and only realised you’d been robbed naked when you got home?”

  Alfie grit his teeth, “Neither, thank you. I just had an unexpectedly trying day. My apologies for missing dinner, but perhaps—”

  “Well, if it’s a trying day you’ve had, I know just the thing!” Reginald sprang to his feet with startling speed. “You’ll be pleased to know that I won a fine bottle of port this afternoon while waiting for you. Clearly you need it more than I. I left it down in the kitchen. If I wasn’t afraid of that old bat cracking me with a frying pan...”

  “I don’t know that I’m really up for—”

  “Hmm no, that’s fair, that’s fair. I’m not up for facing her myself. Well, I suppose we could instead—and mind you this thought has only just occurred to me...”

  Alfie's shoulders slumped. He knew where this was going.

  “...It’s too late for dinner obviously, but we could go grab a quiet drink somewhere. I know one or two fine establishments you might enjoy. There might even be some entertainment to be had as well.”

  Knowing his cousin, Alfie took “a quiet drink” to mean “four to eight”, “fine establishments” to mean “gaming hell” and “entertainment” to mean anything from “prostitutes” to “bea
r baiting”. Even worse however, for Reginald to actually make the effort to come to Alfie's townhouse meant he wanted something and wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of. If buying him a few drinks and funding whatever entertainment his cousin doubtless already had planned for the evening was the price it took to get him off Alfie's back for another few weeks, then so be it.

  His ploy with the gift of port was new though. Perhaps he thought it would sweeten Alfie up. Or perhaps he really was just too afraid of Mrs. Hirkins to retrieve it.

  “Very well, give me a few moments to freshen up. As you noticed, I’m in no state to go out.”

  “Of course, of course, take your time.” Reginald poured himself another measure. “Oh, and don’t forget your pocketbook. I seem to have left mine at the club.”

  Chapter 3

  The evening was even worse than Alfie expected.

  The first pub his cousin took him to had actually been quite pleasant; clean and warm with a clear mix of both nobility and the upper merchant class among the clientele. It was the sort of place Alfie might enjoy returning to in future. Reginald too was surprisingly jovial company, not drinking to excess but nursing a single mug of the admittedly fine ale Alfie bought him. Alfie began to feel ashamed of his earlier doubts about his cousin. Clearly, the stress of the day had simply been taking its toll on him, making him see threats and insinuations when there were none.

  “Reginald, I fear I owe you an apology.”

  “Indeed? Whatever for—oh, I say! Batty! Stokes! Over here!”

  Alfie didn’t bother to hide his groan.

  “Reggie! I say, whatever are you doing here? We didn’t expect to see you tonight!”

  “Yes, what a coincidence I’m sure.” Alfie muttered under his breath.

  The stocky man in a garishly striped waistcoat—Batty to his friends, Lord Bartholomew Boyle to the rest—turned to Alfie. “Freddie, is that you? Well, this is double the surprise then!”

  His over-exaggerated look of shock would have gotten him booed out of any theatre in Drury Lane, and most of the music halls too.

  “Yes,” said the man standing next to him, a Mr. Charles Stockton, another of Reginald’s reviled set.

  He was pale, thin, and dressed to the very cutting edge of fashion. Nearly literally; Alfie worried that if the points of his collar were starched any sharper, the man might inadvertently slit his own throat with an ill-timed cough.

  “What a fortunate coincidence running into you both,” Stockton drawled nasally. “Batty and I were just heading out, would you care to join us?”

  Which was how Alfie found himself dragged from a reputable pub to a disreputable one and finally to an outright gambling hell. His role seemed to be a little more than a human purse for his cousin, “loaning” him money to cover his drinks and hands of poker. Each time he tried to make his excuses and leave the group to their debauchery, they moved on to a different establishment, promising Alfie he would enjoy their next stop more. He did not.

  “One more, one more, Freddie. Truh-trusht me.”

  Alfie tried to shrug out from under the heavy arm slung over his shoulder, causing his injury to flash with pain as Reginald slurred in his ear. “This next place is the whole reason I dragged you out tonight. Move along now, we don’t want to miss it.”

  If his cousin was too drunk to remember that this whole evening was meant to have been unplanned, then perhaps it meant the night was winding down and Alfie would have fulfilled his societal obligations enough to reasonably ignore his cousin for a while without feeling guilty or causing gossip.

  “Very well. Lay on.”

  ✽✽✽

  Alfie adjusted his grip on his cane as they approached their final stop. He was glad to have remembered it. Its solid weight under his hand was comforting, but even the promise the sword hidden within was not enough to make him easy in this part of London. His experience with such weaponry began and ended at Angelo’s, and he somehow doubted East End criminals would be gallant enough to adhere to the strict rules of a fencing bout. He had no idea if his skill with a foil would be of any use at all in a real fight, but it was better than nothing.

  If the last stop had been a hell, this new place had to be one of the lowest circles thereof. The coachman refused to drive them all the way, “Too far into the rookeries,” he claimed, so they had to walk the last several blocks, following Stockton’s increasingly wavering lead. Alfie tried not to let his panic show. Surely his cousin and his acquaintances must have some idea of the dangers of walking through the stews at night, especially dressed as they were and intoxicated to boot!

  Alfie shivered and pulled his coat tighter around himself as they passed yet another dark alley. Something moved within, but man or woman, human or beast, he didn’t dare look and risk drawing its attention. Any kind of criminal, from simple mugger to would-be assassin might be hiding within, and Alfie had had enough of attempted murder for one day.

  He ran his thumb over the hidden latch on his cane that released the blade, just to reassure himself. In front of him, Boyle belted out another verse from a bawdy song about Mother Watkin’s ale as Reginald boomed with laughter.

  A pile of rags on a doorstep resolved itself into an old woman. She reached a withered hand out to Reginald who paid her no notice. Alfie fell a few steps further behind to pass her a penny unnoticed. She gave him a gummy smile in return, the coin disappearing back into the tattered folds of fabric she was wrapped in.

  He knew it was foolhardy to be flashing any money in this part of town, but he couldn’t help but feel for the beggar woman. He was from these streets. If not for the most extraordinary twist of luck, her fate could have easily been his own. This woman might even be some relation of his, an unknown grandmother or forgotten aunt. Sobered by the thought, he pressed another sixpence into her palm before hurrying to catch up with the others.

  Spitalfields. What a ghastly part of town. And yet, somewhere in this filthy stinking mess he had been born, precisely when and to whom he would never know. Even his original name had been lost forever.

  Lord Alfred of the Mud.

  He couldn’t help the wry smile. The workhouse couldn’t be too far from here, unless someone had finally torn down the grim, damp, louse-infested blight. He could only hope.

  That said, if not for the workhouse—or more specifically, one of the boys there—Alfie would have been dead in a gutter long before his new parents, the Lord and Lady Crawford, had found him and raised him as their own. Maybe he did owe it some credit. Alfie took a moment to remember a gap toothed smile and glittering blue eyes, before releasing the past with a sigh.

  Finally, whether by ability or good fortune, Stockton led them to the establishment he had sought. There were several large, rough-looking characters milling about in front of a stairwell that led to a basement entrance. An even larger, rougher man sat posted on a stool beside the door. Immobile as the gargoyle he resembled, he made no move at Stockton’s approach, but a few whispered words and several surreptitious coins led to a grunt and a chin bob.

  “What are you waiting for then, a formal invitation?” laughed Stockton as he waved his compatriots and Alfie through the door with exaggerated effect. Alfie took a deep breath of the slightly fresher street air, and ducked inside.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what he had been expecting; some sort of bacchanal, perhaps? But the underground pub seemed almost civilized. The walls were darkened by smoke and age, but clean enough. There was a bar against the far wall that was doing a brisk trade, and the few serving women rushing between the tables that had been pushed to the edges of the room were all fully clothed.

  There was a pronounced lack of seating, so the majority of the patrons stood, a definite thrum of anticipation in the air. While most of the men resembled the ruffians outside, there were a few other top hats and silk cravats to be seen.

  Alfie loosened his own cravat as much as his sense of decency would allow. The heat and sounds of too many bodies in one place were oppres
sive. There must have been at least a hundred men in a space designed to hold a third that number. It did not help that most of the space was taken up by what he assumed they were there to see: A boxing ring made of rough hempen rope had been assembled in the middle of the room.

  “Not what you were expecting, eh?” Reginald shouted in Alfie's ear to be heard over the din. “Don’t worry, it’s more than it looks. I promise you won’t see a fight like this at Jackson's!”

  Whatever Reginald planned to say next was lost as a man in an apron, the publican, Alfie presumed, stepped into the ring and the crowd roared.

  The man raised his hands, “Gentlemen! Tonight I have for you a battle for the ages!”

  The crowd roared again.

  “Introducing... winner of more fights than an old man like me can count... Bill ‘The Body Snatcher’ Nunn!”

  The man who stepped into the ring drew excited cheers from most members of the crowd, and hisses from a few of the braver ones. Alfie could see why. The man was terrifying. He had to be well over six foot, and twenty-two stone if he was an ounce, all of it muscle. Stripped to nothing but trousers and light shoes, the effect was almost that of a caricature strongman, right down to the oversized mustache and mutton chops leading past two cauliflower ears on his completely bald head. “Almost” because, where a caricature suggested humour, there was nothing of the sort in the man’s small eyes, squinting coldly as he rubbed some sort of grit over his tightly wrapped hands.

  “The Body Snatcher?” Alfie couldn’t help but ask.

  “Well, these fights don’t follow that milksop Broughton’s rules. Here there’s no rounds, no limits, just two men facing each other the way God intended until one of them calls it quits or dies.” Reginald said.

  Alfie noticed vaguely that they’d already lost Stockton and Boyle somewhere in the din.

  “They call that one Body Snatcher on account of the number of his opponents who’ve ended up on dissection tables. Wouldn’t be surprised if there was a medical man or two here tonight, hoping for a casualty in the ring.”